


all the good he did not do

by pawn_vs_player



Series: Adrian's Exam Week Extravaganza [8]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Broken Families, Darkest Timeline, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Non-Canonical Character Death, Tearjerker, a n g s t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-09-24 20:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17107634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: In another world - theother kindof other world, not an alternate dimension but an alternate timeline - Miles doesn't get the mask off in time.(This is, as they say, the darkest timeline.)"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." - Voltaire





	all the good he did not do

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize in advance.  
> 

He's not Aaron when he's wearing the mask. He can't afford to be. 

Aaron Davis is a layabout, a guy with a cool apartment and a rebellious attitude and a nephew he loves very much. He was a delinquent and now he's a graffiti artist who lives in direct opposition to his brother. He has a job he doesn't talk about - most of his acquaintances think he sells drugs somewhere out of state - and plenty of money, but not much to spend it on.

Prowler is a lieutenant in Kingpin's empire, the metal monster who always finds his prey. He isn't on call all the time, but he's more trustworthy than most of the other underlings. He is good at what he does and he does not hesitate to fulfill his boss's orders. 

Most of the time, Prowler even likes what he does. Yeah, he works for a supervillain, but honestly? Most of the people he eliminates on Kingpin's orders aren't exactly good people either. Usually they're criminals who don't want to be part of the empire, and usually Prowler doesn't even have to kill them - rough them up, maybe mutilate them a little, but Prowler is, on the whole, not a murderer.

The death of Wilson Fisk's family changes things. Kingpin is obsessed with Spider-Man, whom he blames for the accident (Prowler thinks, privately, that Fisk is in denial about his own role, but he values the integrity of his ribs so he doesn't say anything). Instead of running the empire like he used to, Kingpin becomes obsessed with somehow bringing his family back. Liv joins the team as both the head scientist behind the effort to find Fisk a new family and as the Octopus. Work begins under the subways of Brooklyn. Prowler is ordered to bring Spider-Man back to Kingpin alive.

The day the machine is set to activate, Aaron brings his nephew down to the area he'd discovered while waiting on the machine's construction. It's out of the way and relatively clean, and big enough for the project Miles has been talking about. They spend a couple hours down there, Miles' laughter echoing against the concrete. It's a good day: time with his nephew and the anticipation of a big job ready to be handled.

Aaron sends Miles home - or, more accurately, back to his dorm - and locks his door. He does maintenance on the suit to pass the time until Kingpin makes the call.

-

There are five Spider-People, which is... weird. But Liv has pointed out which one is from this universe, and he knows that's the one with the USB drive, so that's the one he follows.

The new Spider is very green. It's so obvious that he's still figuring out how his powers work. Maybe in a few months he'd be a challenge, but as it is Prowler catches him in about a minute. 

Prowler has his hand around the Spider's neck, relishing in the fear he can see on what face the mask doesn't cover. He's slowly tipping the little Spider back, dragging it out, fingers oh-so-slowly tightening. This is his favorite part: the terror on some scumbag's face as they realize that they're not wriggling their way out of this one.

He glances down at his boss, makes a gesture with his free hand, walking his fingers over the edge of the roof:  _Am I killing him, or am I saving him for you?_ Kingpin gives a magnanimous sweep of one of those massive hands: _Go on, do the honors._

Under the mask, Prowler is not smiling, but his eyes shine with the thrill of a successful hunt. His grip tightens around the Spider's thin neck. The Spider wheezes, scrabbling at Prowler's gauntlet with thin brown hands.

And it's here that Prowler stumbles onto a very unwelcome realization: this new Spider isn't a small adult. This new Spider is a  _teenager._

As all of New York (and probably the rest of the world) knows by now, the last Spider was named Peter Parker. He died at twenty-six, after ten years of vigilante work. He was sixteen when he started. Prowler hadn't come onto the scene until several years after Spider-Man first started webbing his way around New York. Prowler never fought a teenaged Peter Parker.

Prowler has never killed a teenager. 

The new Spider is so small in his grasp, throat constricting easily under Prowler's hand, pale brown eyes growing wet and shiny in fear. The kid is Miles's size. He can't be older than Peter Parker was when he started. He's been operating for what, a day? Two? He had no part in the deaths of Fisk's family. He is an  _innocent._

Aaron Davis would let the kid go, would say  _to hell with this_ and put the kid down and maybe even go up against Fisk to protect him.

He is not Aaron Davis when he's wearing the mask. He's Prowler, and Prowler does what his boss wants him to do.

He holds the kid out over the drop, lets gravity help him out. He gives the kid a rough shake, two, three, hand clenching tight. The kid's head jerks once, twice, and on the third there is an awful  _crack_ and it falls limp.

Prowler lets go. The kid falls, hits the earth with a muffled  _thump,_ and lies still.

Aaron feels very cold all of a sudden. Prowler feels nothing at all.

Something slams into him and he goes tumbling off the roof himself. He barely manages to dig his claws into the roof; he swings back and forth once or twice and then lets go in a controlled drop. His boots slam into the ground, leaving inches-deep imprints. He has barely a second to move before webs are slamming into the ground where he had been standing.

The chubby Spider, the one Liv cornered in her lab, continues shooting web at him. Prowler is distantly impressed by the man's ability to aim despite his obvious emotional turmoil. Unfortunately for the Spider, Prowler used to be a black male delinquent and is now a professional supervillain. He is very good at dodging.

"You killed him," the Spider hisses. The man is practically spitting flames. "You  _fucking killed him._ "

Scorpion bats one of the distracted Spiders, the one in a white suit that seems to be a female, to the ground near the little Spider's body. She gets to her feet quickly and then notices what lies beside her. She falls back down on her knees.

The sound that comes from her throat is not human.

"HE WAS A  _CHILD_!" the male Spider roars, and springs at Prowler again. 

Prowler's hand comes up, claws extended. The Spider, half-mad with rage, narrowly escapes stabbing himself on them. They fight, the Spider both aided and encumbered by his fury. Other Spiders sometimes try to help, but Liv and the others keep them occupied. Fisk stands aside, probably laughing at the chaos. Knowing Fisk, if Prowler kills another Spider he'll get a promotion.

The thought spurs him on. So does the booted foot to the face, or mask, but it still smarts. On the Spider's next pass, webs hitting the ground around Prowler like chunks of hail, Prowler purposefully dodges into one of the sticky lines. He makes a show of being stuck, slashing uselessly at the webbing with his free hand and keeping the trapped one's claws drawn in.

The Spider is almost incandescent with rage. Just as Prowler expected, he strides closer, fists clenched so tightly the material of his suit strains around his knuckles. "You fucking bastard, you killed him," the Spider snarls. He reminds the Prowler of a mother bear who's just lost a cub, one who's willing to do just about anything to protect the rest of her babies and is so full of anger that a bullet to the head won't stop her. 

"Heroes don't kill," the Spider says, and Prowler is surprised to realize that he's actually a little afraid. If he times this wrong... "But I haven't been a hero for a while now, y'know, and I don't really care if this makes me a bad person. You deserve it."

He just needs the Spider to get a little bit closer...

There.

The Spider cries out as the claws on Prowler's trapped hand extend, slashing through the extra layering of his stomach. Blood drips from Prowler's outstretched fingers and gushes in thick spurts from the Spider's abdomen. The Spider stumbles back, gloved hands pressing at the gashes in his stomach. Blood streams through his fingers.

"Fuck this," a woman yells. At first Prowler thinks Liv has gotten bored enough to break out the curses, but when he turns, it's a gray-haired woman in a nice sweater. May Parker.

She is holding a gun.

"You kill my nephew, destroy my house," she swallows, "and kill  _another_ boy? Liv, I swear to god, get these fuckers off my property before I shoot all of you."

"May - "

"Now, Liv."

Prowler isn't sure whether Liv would have obeyed. He never finds out. Police sirens wail in the distance, getting louder by the moment. 

The weird black-and-white Spider spins a web between his hands and kneels, holding it over the chubby Spider's wounds. "You'd best do as the dame says," he says in a strange accent. 

"We'll finish this later," Fisk growls, and stomps away. His bodyguards and Liv follow him, but Prowler... Prowler hesitates. 

The body of the little Spider is so innocuous, lying there on the lawn. If Prowler didn't know better, he'd think the kid was sleeping. 

A bullet grazes his arm, scratching the armor plating. When he turns, it's to May Parker aiming squarely at his head.

"Get. The fuck. Off my property."

Prowler ejects his hand from the trapped gauntlet and flees. Leaving his tech in their hands is a small price to pay for his life. He has no doubt that May Parker would have shot him, and when the mask stopped the bullet, she would have kept firing until she broke through and sunk one into his brain.

The saying is  _Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,_ but Aaron has always subscribed to the version his grandfather told him:  _Hell hath no fury like a mother wounded._

-

When he gets back to his apartment, he finds seven missed calls and three voicemails. Two of the voicemails are from Rio. The third is from his brother.

They boil down to the same message:  _Miles is missing. Do you know where he is?_

Aaron Davis, who loves his nephew more than anything else in the world, would drop everything else to search. 

Prowler, who has no family and cares about his own wellbeing above all else, does not care. Prowler has a job. Prowler needs to keep the Spiders from fucking up his boss's plan (again). 

 _No,_ Aaron texts both of them.  _I'll be looking._

He leaves the phone in his apartment when he drives away.

-

The chubby Spider is a few layers thicker. Even his healing factor can't undo Prowler's damage in a few hours; he's wrapped up like a mummy under the suit. Prowler cracks a self-satisfied smile under the mask. 

Liv is taken out surprisingly fast, and Scorpion and Tombstone are stuck in the monitoring station - they don't have the ability to defy gravity or cling to walls. Prowler does: his claws are as steadfast in metal as in flesh, and he has limited and brief flight capabilities. Soon enough, it's only Prowler and the boss against five Spiders - five pissed-off, clearly experienced Spiders. Even with the injury, the chubby Spider is a force to be reckoned with, and without Liv or the others Prowler finds himself up against multiple Spiders, white-suit-who's-maybe-a-girl and robot-spider in addition to the chubby one. He is clearly outclassed, and they have webbed up to the wall in seconds.

The chubby Spider moves in to do - something, probably to take the helmet off and strangle Prowler or something like that, but white-suited Spider puts a slender hand on his shoulder. "He's not worth it, Peter," and yeah, definitely a girl. "You're better than him."

Safe behind his mask, Prowler rolls his eyes.

"He killed the kid," the chubby Spider snarls. Despite the imminent danger toward his own life, Prowler finds himself somewhat admiring the Spider. At least this one has his priorities in order. "He deserves it."

"You don't."

The robot Spider, seeming uncomfortable somehow (is it a drone? is there a person inside it?), scuttles off to join the scuffle against Kingpin. Prowler continues twisting and straining against the webs holding him to the wall. 

"He killed him. He killed Mi - "

"I know." The girl Spider sounds like she's on the brink of tears, voice choked and thick. "I _know_ , Peter, but we have to be better than them. We have to. That's what makes us heroes."

"I'm not a hero, Gwen! I gave up the hero gig."

"You don't just stop being a hero." The girl is definitely crying now. "You're staying, aren't you? I think that's pretty damn heroic."

The male Spider scrubs a hand over his mask. "Gwen... who else is going to get justice for the kid?"

"There are police here," Gwen points out. "May took pictures..."

"The police can't touch Fisk."

They'd probably keep talking until Prowler goes gray, but the whole structure around them gives a great shudder and the girl Spider -  _Gwen_ the other Spider,  _Peter_ , had said - shoots another layer of webbing around Prowler to keep him attached to the wall. "We're tabling this for later," she says firmly. 

The chubby Spider, Peter, doesn't reply. He gives Prowler one last look - and even through the mask Prowler can feel the blazing fury in his gaze - and swings off.

"Just stay here," Gwen-Spider orders. Prowler doesn't dignify that with a reply.

-

Somehow - Prowler isn't sure how, he couldn't see most of the fight - the Spiders get the portal open and all but one of them return to their own dimensions. The psychedelic riot of colors collapses in on itself as soon as other-dimension-Peter jabs the USB into the wall panel. Prowler suddenly becomes grateful for being webbed to the wall as the implosion of the rift pulls most of the room in with it. 

When the dust settles, Kingpin is unconscious and dangling from a multitude of webs. The one remaining Spider doesn't look good - his suit is streaked with blood and grime and it's torn in several places - but he's standing, albeit on the ceiling. And he's walking toward Prowler, with no one to stop him from taking his revenge.

Prowler's throat is very dry, and stays that way no matter how many times he swallows.

The Spider, Peter, takes Prowler's head in his hands. "I would kill you," he says, solemn and quiet as Death herself, "but the kid wouldn't want that. The kid believed in heroes. I'm sparing you for him, scumbag. It's a damn lot more than you deserve, though."

He webs off toward the remains of the monitoring station. Prowler can't turn to look, but he stiffens up all over when he hears someone conversing with other-dimensional Peter. Someone familiar.

Jeff. Jeff is here. Jeff  _saw_ \- how much did he see? Prowler needs to escape, he needs to get out of here  _right now._

-

It takes a while, and in the end even he isn't sure how he managed it, but he gets out of the webbing before the rest of the police arrive. 

He leaves Fisk to his fate. He has other problems.

-

He hears about it on the news within a day or two. The Spider-Man left behind, Peter Parker of some other dimension, collapsed and glitched out of existence after hours of agonized screaming. He'd been rushed to a hospital from his complimentary jail cell, but nothing they'd tried had been able to save him.

Aaron doesn't care. Why should he? Spiders or a lack thereof is no problem of his.

Prowler is relieved. A worthy adversary, a true threat, is gone.

-

It's been three days. Miles is still missing. They put up posters. He and Jeff can stand the sight of each other for the first time in years. Rio cries on his shoulder. The people at Jeff's precinct are searching as hard as they can, but they're not getting anything. 

Aaron is scared.

-

It's been four days. There are so many things that could happen to a kid in this city. He hadn't thought about it, but Liv's machine had caused some serious earthquakes. What if Miles had gotten caught in one, what if the searchers digging through the rubble come across a kid with one shoe always untied and a smile Aaron will never see again - 

No. No, Miles is alive. He has to be alive.

-

It's been a week. Aaron is calling in favors, talking to contacts he hasn't reached out to in years. He's tipping his hand, showing all his cards, but he doesn't care. If Miles comes home, he promises himself and a God he doesn't believe in, he'll hang up the suit and go straight. Anything for Miles to be safe. Anything for Miles to come home.

-

It's been two weeks. Miles hasn't come home. 

Aaron can't sleep through the night.

-

It's been a month. Aaron gets a call from an unknown number. He picks up because in his line of work, unknown numbers are usually attached to known people.

The voice on the other end is female, tired, and familiar.

"I hear you're looking for a boy," May Parker says. "Your nephew. You're Aaron Davis, right? Or should I say Prowler?"

"What do you know?" Aaron demands, and then, because  _anything for Miles to come home_ does mean  _anything_ , "what do you want?"

"It's not about what I want," May replies. She sounds very tired. "Do you remember wrecking my house with your friends, Prowler?"

"Of course, but - "

"Do you remember the boy? The boy you murdered?"

Aaron's entire body flinches. "I - I - "

Yes, he remembers. How could he forget?

"That boy," May continues, and Aaron is reminded of his first impression of her, cold eyes in a steel-firm face and hands steady around a gun, fierce and unrelenting and unafraid, "gained his powers less than two days before you killed him. He was a sweet kid and he had so, so much to give. And you took that from him."

"Ma'am, please, I - I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you want, but what do you know about my - the boy I'm looking for?"

May's sigh is a rush of static down the line. "Mr Davis," she says, and for a moment she almost sounds sympathetic. "I just told you what I know about your nephew."

The phone clatters to the ground.

Faintly, over the sound of Aaron's entire world crumbling down around him, he thinks that he did not deserve whatever scrap of sympathy May Parker dredged up to give him.

**Author's Note:**

> ...so uh. yeah, i wrote that. i apologized in advance and i apologize again. hopefully tomorrow's post will be lighter-hearted.
> 
> (update: for bonus pain, read the comments.)


End file.
